Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies [Paperback]

Ben Shneiderman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262692996 | ISBN-13: 978-0262692991 | Publication Date: August 11, 2003

Ben Shneiderman's book dramatically raises computer users' expectations of what they should get from technology. He opens their eyes to new possibilities and invites them to think freshly about future technology. He challenges developers to build products that better support human needs and that are usable at any bandwidth. Shneiderman proposes Leonardo da Vinci as an inspirational muse for the "new computing." He wonders how Leonardo would use a laptop and what applications he would create.Shneiderman shifts the focus from what computers can do to what users can do. A key transformation is to what he calls "universal usability," enabling participation by young and old, novice and expert, able and disabled. This transformation would empower those yearning for literacy or coping with their limitations. Shneiderman proposes new computing applications in education, medicine, business, and government. He envisions a World Wide Med that delivers secure patient histories in local languages at any emergency room and thriving million-person communities for e-commerce and e-government. Raising larger questions about human relationships and society, he explores the computer's potential to support creativity, consensus-seeking, and conflict resolution. Each chapter ends with a Skeptic's Corner that challenges assumptions about trust, privacy, and digital divides.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A very useful book..." Peta Jellis First Monday Reviews

"It's easy...to get caught up in the author's techno-Utopian vision of a world hotwired to serve its populace." Elizabeth Millard ComputerUser.com

"[Schneiderman} is blessed with an engaging writing style and the ability to make this material interesting and lively." Jessie Thorpe Modbee.com

"This book communicates a kaleidoscopic vision of how technology can be used to empower people in multiple areas of life." Parshu Anantharam The Rational Edge

"This book is an inspiration, a must read." Professor Gavriel Salvendy International Journal of Human Computer Interaction

"This book will change the way you think about web design." WebReference

"This is an eloquently written and visionary book." Pashu Anantharam The Rational Edge

"Who should read (Leonardo's Laptop)? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future." Gerd Waloszek SAP Design Guild

"It's easy... to get caught up in the author's techno-Utopian vision of a world hotwired to serve its populace." Elizabeth Millard ComputerUser.com

"[Schneiderman] is blessed with an engaging writing style and the ability to make this material interesting and lively." Jessie Thorpe Modbee.com

"This book communicates a kaleidoscopic vision of how technology can be used to empower people... interesting and exciting." Parshu Anantharam The Rational Edge

"... This book is an inspiration, a must read." Gavriel Salvendy International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction

"This is an eloquently written and visionary book." Pashu Anantharam The Rational Edge

"Who should read [Leonardo's Laptop]? Everyone who cares about mankind, technology, and the future." Gerd Waloszek SAP Deisgn Guild

"My favourite sentence in this book is 'easy to say, but tough to do.' Ben Shneiderman addresses many of the key issues in creating powerful tools that empower and liberate users. By comparison with a bygone age, and a true polymath (Leonardo), Ben puts his finger on how specialised and compartmentalised our thinking has become. I can¹t help feeling that if everyone were to read this book we would have a lot less technology and interface induced grief. Definitely one for the pocket and desk and not the bookshelf."--Peter Cochrane, Co-Founder, ConceptLabs California

"A lot of people talk about a new wave of innovation driven by human need, rather than by technology, but Ben Shneiderman is actually doing the innovating. This timely book is about the new ways technology will help us mobilise human agency, not replace it."--John Thackara, First Perceptron, Doors of Perception

About the Author

Ben Shneiderman is Professor of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Product Details

• Paperback: 281 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262692996
• ISBN-13: 978-0262692991
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #48 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction
  • #88 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Culture

More About the Author

BEN SHNEIDERMAN (http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben) is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/) at the University of Maryland. He was elected as a Fellow of the Association for Computing (ACM) in 1997, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2001, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2010. He received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

Ben likes skiing, hiking, biking, and working with his students on new ideas. He developed the interface idea for the link with grad student Dan Ostroff in 1984, pioneered information visualization concepts with Christopher Ahlberg (who went on to found Spotfire, based on these concepts), and developed the treemap concept, which was first implemented by grad student Brian Johnson.

Current projects focus on electronic health records and network visualization. He believes computer science should be more directly devoted to making the world a better place.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars repetitive, but somehow doesn't say anything, June 21, 2005

By 

Nadyne Richmond (Mountain View, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Paperback)

Schneiderman's "Leonardo's Laptop" is singularly disappointing. Promising to raise our expectation of what we should get from technology, he instead uses a forced extended metaphor in the form of Leonardo da Vinci. What would Leonardo do?, we are repeatedly asked. Schneiderman attempts to answer the question. Sadly, his answers are neither new nor groundbreaking. I cannot believe that Leonardo would simply recount solutions that are already available and attempt to make such solutions sound visionary and forward-thinking.

The chapters in the book discuss the issues with usability today, activites and relationships, and attempt to discuss future directions in several fields: government, healthcare, business, and education. In these chapters, Schneiderman uses feel-good buzzwords like 'empowering' and 'enabling', but never moves beyond the feel-good buzzwords to suggest real solutions. In most cases, he suggests solutions that are already implemented; in others, he simply waves his hands at the problem and says that there has to be a solution.

Each chapter concludes with a skeptic's corner. This section could easily be re-labelled the strawman's corner. In that section, he constructs arguments that skeptics might use, but he must assume that skeptics are uniformly moronic. The so-called skeptical arguments are drawn with exceptionally rough strokes, which he dispenses of with little regard to very real concerns that can and should be discussed.

I had high hopes for this book. I wanted something that pushed the boundaries. I wanted something visionary. Instead, I got a repetitive book that somehow didn't say anything. I can only hope that future works give us something better than this.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonardo's Laptop  A Unique Resource, February 4, 2003

By 

Peter J. Wasilko, Esq., J.D., LL.M. (Westchester County, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Hardcover)

It is a sad fact that with the exception of deep academic and professional texts aimed at corporate programmers and computer science researchers, most books on computing have frighteningly short useful lifetimes. All too many of them are little more than glorified how-to guides in the use of specific versions of rapidly evolving commercial packages and ever changing industry standards. A few attempt to cover application areas in more generality, but very few indeed strike at the core of the really big picture while offering substantial value to both computing experts and End Users alike.

Ben Shneiderman's tour-de-force, Leonardo's Laptop, is just such a rare gem. It accomplishes the hat trick of meeting the needs of readers in academia, industry, and the general public by going beyond talk of the "in technologies" of the moment to conceptualizing a New Computing organized around the principle of putting human needs first.

It reminds us that while we may have become accustomed to buggy and brittle software, such bad designs - which cost both lives and dollars - impoverish the human spirit and need not be tolerated. By drawing on our scientific and artistic sides we can restore the balance to make technology use an ennobling experience.

Although the text is addressed to everyday computer users and decision makers whose purchasing patterns ultimately determine what the IT sector will produce, it offers a rich set of endnotes that will guide technically oriented readers to the resources they need to implement its vision. Moreover, researchers and business people will find Leonardo's Laptop to be an invaluable source of ideas for grant writing and business plan development.

This book is a must have that will lead to new insights with each reading.

If you are a High School Teacher or University Faculty Member whose students are looking at the role of computers in society or who aspire to creating the next generation of high tech, you owe it to them to evaluate Leonardo's Laptop for use as a required or recommended reading in your courses!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonardo's Laptop by Ben Shneiderman, November 30, 2002

By 

Dr. R. Ram-Appel (Tel-Aviv University) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies (Hardcover)

Ben Shneiderman's "Leonardo's Laptop" should be as inspirational to readers in the 21st century as Leonardo daVinci was in the l5th and l6th. Renaissance man possessed "virtu"-the spirit of the times reflected by freedom to choose, invent and create. Shneiderman exemplifies this same attribute today, probably termed "existential". One does not remain static but, freely innovative with all tools available. While Leonardo pioneered the arts and sciences which eventually enlightened society, Shneiderman suggests what the user can do with the computer as an application of modern day social science .

This book offers a model, the same process of Leonardo's thought - COLLECT, RELATE, CREATE, DONATE. (CRCD) Clearly, this process has unlimited applications and Shneiderman highlights education, commerce, medicine and of course government, itself, sa varied spectrum of political ramifications. Most computer users master the technical side. Shneiderman reminds us that if we just stop for a moment, in the imaginative Renaissance spirit of "virtue" or his modern model CRCD, this technical tool can benefit various aspects of social living. Leonardo did not have this opportunity yet,because he well understood the human condition, we still positively enjoy his legacy. Shneiderman's model serves this same inspiration in today's world. Since the computer is here to stay, let's use it well!